July 12, 2016 AT 5:00 am

UK Unveils Its First Public Statue of a Historic Black Woman #ArtTuesday

Awhile back, King Egbert the Saxon King founded England. 1,200 years later England gets its first public work in memory of a black woman. via Hyperallergic

Last Thursday, a monumental statue of Mary Seacole was unveiled in London. Sculpted by artist Martin Jennings, the bronze depicts the 19th-century nurse striding forward; a disc behind her has an impression of the ground in Crimea, where she served on the battlefield. According to a statement that the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal (MSMSA) shared with Hyperallergic, the statue is the first in the UK “dedicated to a named black woman.”